It fills every silent corner and rolls across each room like the booming ticks of a small mantle clock. Frightening, pervasive, indelible, and ever-stalking the peace of solitude. How is it possible that nobody else notices it? It must be just me. If I'd not grown up in the cacophonous hubbub of pattering feet, wrestling bodies, and chattering voices, or if I had simply taken more time when I had time, I wouldn't feel it either.
It highlights the pictures of family members I haven't seen in months. It feeds off of white noise making my situation more obvious. It dredges up memories that I wish weren't so distant. It paints brilliant hypotheticals that I can only imagine I'm missing.
It isn't homesickness; the place I grew up is only the canvas of my contented existence. It is more than that. It distances me from familiar faces, close conversations, family jokes, company. Hard times, yellowed memories, happy times, youthful escapades. It proves to me that acclimating to a location is not nearly as powerful as acclimating to a soul.
It's loneliness, and I am really good at it.
Where does it come from? I'll tell you where it comes from. Everywhere. From the fact that Spencer is working late tonight, unable to help chase it away. From the fact that I just got off a phone call with words that couldn't be spoken in person. From empty evenings brimming with homework instead of siblings' orchestra concerts, soccer games, first words, and story time—I tell myself that it's okay, I'll make up lost time, I won't be so busy and isolated for much longer. It comes from having responsibilities that I can't ignore till I'm abandoned by any company because I first abandoned them. It comes from sitting silently wishing someone would knock on the door, going to sleep alone, waking alone, walking alone, thinking alone.
It's loneliness, and I am really good at it.
Where does it come from? I'll tell you where it comes from. Everywhere. From the fact that Spencer is working late tonight, unable to help chase it away. From the fact that I just got off a phone call with words that couldn't be spoken in person. From empty evenings brimming with homework instead of siblings' orchestra concerts, soccer games, first words, and story time—I tell myself that it's okay, I'll make up lost time, I won't be so busy and isolated for much longer. It comes from having responsibilities that I can't ignore till I'm abandoned by any company because I first abandoned them. It comes from sitting silently wishing someone would knock on the door, going to sleep alone, waking alone, walking alone, thinking alone.
It comes when I realize that my siblings are growing up and I'm not there. When "Hey it's Natalie!" becomes a frequent reference to a calling device instead of my face. When me coming home is an occasion and not the everyday. It comes when I remember that my five-year-old brother cried in a corner outside the temple because he thought my wedding meant he'd never see me again. I held him and whispered promises; I prayed because I felt the gaps of time chasing me down. It comes when another brother tries not to cry when I leave, or a sister clutches me saying, "call me, we'll figure out what to talk about." When I say I'll teach her to crochet someday, or I'll read him Harry Potter, that I'll teach her French, we'll analyze Lord of the Rings, talk about boys, play frisbee, go on walks, go shopping, go to a movie, go on a double date, practice yoga, learn to draw, stargaze from the roof, roast s'mores, or sit and do nothing.
Oh wait, I don't have time to do nothing, no matter how important, I'm too busy being laboriously lonely.
Sometimes I am a well of loneliness. I can dig into my soul like deep earth and etch out the regrets of all that I'm missing. But, though I'm good at loneliness, the impression in my being while a void to me, houses love for others. I fill up my cavity with water to share. Each voicemail, each letter, each picture might fill me with loneliness, but I drink it as love. Some youngest siblings may tell you that they were always alone or that their older siblings didn't care. Not my siblings. Phone calls and letters. Skype and short visits. Ongoing texts full of riddles, ongoing conversations full of to-be-continued. And how do you think I feel about that?
Give you one guess.
~Natalie Cherie
